


Play It Back

by telefool



Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Jesse/Darling if you squint, Prime Candidate Selection, Secrets, Trans Female Character, Trans!Jesse Faden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 11:03:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20891060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telefool/pseuds/telefool
Summary: Jesse cuts through red tape. Darling wishes she wouldn't run with scissors.





	Play It Back

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously I now live in a world where Darling returns. I've jumped ships, and I think I live here now. Expect copious amounts of Jesse/Darling trash from me.

As the Director, nothing was black barred from her. All the red tape cut, rolled back once she assumed control. Everything about the AI’s, about the Bureau’s sordid history, about Dylan.

Everything about  _ her _ .

“I remember this.” She told him, and saw Darling nod in the glass reflection. Too many windows in this vacuumous void of a house. She supposed it was because there was just so much to see, so much to do. “They tested everybody that day. Lined us up in the hall outside…”

Darling nodded again, and Jesse should have just told him to leave, but he’d asked to stay. When she’d requested all information on Prime Candidate 7, Dr. Darling had been politely helpful, despite his very obvious reluctance to show her what she wanted.

And when she’d been about to show him out, he’d instead asked to stay. Again, very politely, and Jesse supposed that was why she allowed it. Despite her controlling the Bureau now, she was still Jesse Faden, B student, pushover. Dr. Darling was twice her age, and well-spoken, with serious eyes that looked at her too closely, watching the lines of her face, the shape of her mouth as she spoke- rarely her eyes.

So, sure. Why not? It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard it before.

“You visited Ordinary before the accident?” Jesse asked, crossed her arms to ward off the fragility in her voice.  **I got passed over twice?**

“I assumed chronologically would be the easiest way to digest it.” Darling said and sometimes Jesse missed the rueful good cheer he spoke with in his videos. His time on the astral plane had left him greyer, more somber. “This is the very first recording we have of you.”

_ ‘And what’s your name?’ _

_ ‘Jesse.’ _

It was said rather defiantly, and Jesse’s lips twitched. She hadn’t recognized the teacher doing the testing, but after she’d begun growing out her hair Jesse learned quickly to distrust women who smiled like that.They normally wanted her to act like she was supposed to. To behave.

Dylan had hated them for her too, even though women like that seemed to just love him.  **Jesse why can’t you be more like your brother?**

_ ‘And what do you like to do, Jesse? What makes you happy?’ _

“You guys were professional, I’ll give you that.” Jesse said, turning away from her reflection, putting her back to the glass instead, letting it support the press of her shoulder blades. That’s something she learned in juvie, once Dylan wasn’t there to protect her. Back to the wall, it was just safer that way. “She didn’t even blink at the boy in the dress. Way better than the teachers of Ordinary Elementary.”

“I like to think we’re a bit better than local government.” Darling said, but doesn’t add to it. Doesn’t help her cover the sound of her childish voice. Was apparently content to look at his feet, and listen to her tell this smiling woman everything about her boring, Ordinary life. Spilling her guts, all because she’d looked at Jesse like you’d look at any other normal little girl.

“This was Prime Candidate testing?” Jesse guessed, tired already.  **Just when I thought I’d uncovered all the lies.** “Why did you come to Ordinary?”

“We went everywhere, trying to give Trench what he wanted.” Darling said, and Jesse wondered if he was aware of the bitterness coloring his voice, cold coffee stains on an old mug. “A successor. An heir, to the little viper’s nest of paranoia he’d built around himself.”

Jesse’s high babyish voice filled the gaps between their words as the woman- Jesse was sure she’d given a name, but she’d missed it speaking to Darling and certainly couldn’t remember it from all those years ago- asked her question after question. Her age, her grade, her favorite color, if she liked to read, if she liked to draw… if she liked to dream.

“You can’t tell me you tested all of America.”

“We had plans to.”

Jesse scoffed. Took a breath. She’d known what she was inheriting. Thought she had, had cut herself enough times in the last few weeks picking up the pieces.  **I can’t hide from the truth.**

She’d picked up the gun. Didn’t have a lot of choice now.

“Consider any future plans to that effect canceled.” Jesse said, putting strength she wasn’t sure she had into her voice. Darling nodded wordlessly. In moments like this Jesse always wondered what guilt the others took home at the end of the day. What guilt did Darling hang up each night with his lab coat… what guilt did he take home, to bed.

_ ‘So, what do you like to do outside of school?’ _

Jesse Faden, age ten, life already shit, and about to get so much shittier warbled back politely all the usual answers that warded off adults. That she liked to run, that she liked horses. 

“I did love horses.” Jesse murmured, not looking up. Wasn’t sure if she wanted to see pity on Darking’s face or not, so took the easy way out and looked at her shoes.

_ ‘...and sometimes, we go play at the dump, at night. We aren’t supposed to, but… Dylan really likes it out there, I guess.’ _

Looked up in time to see Darling stiffen in front of her, like he’d been strung on a wire. Starting at his spine, and pulling him up, ending with his eyes locked on hers.

The woman in the recording was hardly as interested.

_ ‘Oh? Who’s Dylan?’ _

A pause where Jesse closed her eyes at the soft love in her voice as she answered.

_ ‘My brother!’ _

_ ‘One of the potentials.’ _

Darling’s voice was weary on the recording, a little scratchy. Public schools did that to you, even just visiting. Jesse raised her eyebrow at him now.

“You weren’t in the room.” She said, but she didn’t sound certain. Once you knew all the things the Bureau kept hidden behind it’s doors, more things seemed possible than you really wanted. “I’d remember that.”

“I wasn’t in the room.” Darling reassured her. “The audio is just layered. You’re hearing what Martha heard in her earpiece.”

_ ‘And why does Dylan like the dump so much?’ _

_ ‘I don’t know.’ _

The sudden evasion was painfully obvious after how forthcoming she’d already been.

_ ‘Follow up.’ _ Darling again, and she could hear him take a long sip of something on the recording.

“Never again.” Jesse said, grit out between teeth ground dull from a thousand nights of nightmares. “We will never be responsible for something like this again. Taking children-”

“It was supposed to be a fostering program. A school.” Darling said, his voice calm, but growing more cynical as he spoke. “The systems in place hardly promote healthy young minds, or psychic strength, and rarely together. Besides once Trench saw Dylan after the event, he- he’d made up his mind.”

Jesse sighed. She should probably despise him. 

Still, she of all people could understand the pull this place had. She turned, putting her back to him again. Leaned forward a little and pressed her forehead flat to the glass, searching her own gaze in reflection. “Do you know, I was stupid enough to wish you had taken me too?”

“I know.” Darling said, and something about the raw honesty in his quick reply had Jesse hunching into herself. “I know how much you… wondered, about us. Over the years.”

It took her a moment, and when she got it, she closed her eyes. All her hours in therapy, from the forced counseling sessions in juvie about her ‘crossdressing’, to the free sessions she’d attended for her only semester of community college. Every bit of painful questioning. Fuck. Her goddamn police records-

All the times she’d wondered if that was why they’d taken her perfect brother, and not his stupid, trans sister.

“That’s a little embarrassing.” Jesse said. She cleared her throat, trying to wipe it free of emotion. She shouldn’t have let him stay, but she’d wanted to know. “I hope everyone had to submit such an extensive resume.”

_ ‘Alright Jesse, let’s move onto the eye test. Can you close your eyes for me?’ _

_ ‘Close them?’ _

Jesse mouthed the words along with herself.

_ ‘Yes! Here, I will too, okay?’ _

“She was a null, to ensure we were only measuring the students.” Darling said. Jesse nodded. Pulled away from the window to pace partway across the room, and back because she could hardly stand still. Let herself collapse into the chair behind his desk.

Darling looked so unassuming. Just like the rest of the Bureau.

_ ‘Now imagine there is a third eye, right in the center of your forehead.’ _

Even now, Jesse’s mind began to narrowed to that still place, she’d first conjured then.

_ ‘Now open your eye.’ _

That calming voice, and Jesse let herself open to that place, she’d first found in that little empty classroom all those years ago.

_ ‘And see.’ _

** _(-theconstantlivinghumofthehouse,thegrowlingheatofhergunatherhip,thenervouslearnedenergyofherDarlingjustbeforeher-)_ **

“Oh.” Darling said, breathless. “You’re- sorry. You’re strong. I hadn’t-”

He shook his head. Laughed, a little dryly. “I hadn’t had the pleasure, Director. No wonder the gun chose you in a time of crisis.”

“You measured me then.” Jesse said, confused. Too empty for bitterness or cynicism. She’d still gotten here hadn’t she. Would probably die here now, given the strictures of her title. “I didn’t make the cut.”

“Powers often mature later in life.” Darling answered. “Trench prefered the… malleability of young minds.”

_ ‘She’s got something.’ _

Trench now, faded on the recording. He always seemed so sharp on the Hotline. Here, he sounded like an old man, so much smoke.  _ ‘Family lines, Darling. I keep telling you, it’s in the blood.’ _

_ ‘We’ve done no testing to prove that.’ _ Darling sounded fussy.

_ ‘Maybe we should.’ _ Trench said.  _ ‘Find out what happens another generation down.’ _

_ ‘Let me focus on the first enormous task you’ve assigned me.’ _ Darling said, and Jesse’s eyebrows drew together at the tightly controlled emotion in his voice.

Trench just laughed.

_ ‘Whatever, Darling. Her brother’s more powerful anyway. Probably more mature.’ _

“Trench was… conservative.” Darling said, into the silence following. “More reason for Emily to be so pleased you’ve assumed control here.The same goes for-”

“None of this was okay!” Jesse said, eyes squeezing shut on sudden tears, and Darling stepped forward, cutting off the tape, extending the silence.

“I know.” Darling said, and the urgency in his voice made her look up at him, a sad man wreathed in shadows. “I wasn’t- None of what we did to your family was right, Jesse. I gave Trench what he wanted, so he’d give me what I wanted. And you both paid the price.”

Jesse drew in a wet breath. Tried to think clearly.

“You were one man.” She said finally. “Everyone here was liable. Everyone knew.”

Darling bowed his head, taking the out she’d given him. He didn’t look any less troubled, and Jesse wondered if he took more guilt home with him than she’d thought.

“Emily isn’t alone in her relief that it was you who took up the mantle.” Darling said. Clasped his hands nervously in front of him, before pushing them deep into their pockets. “I think it’s safe to say the devil we knew was much worse.”

“I want to make a difference.” Jesse said.  **I do.**

“You already have.”

Jesse looked at the clutter of his desk, unseeingly. Back up to the ghost from her past, to the neat press of his bowtie.

“Thank you.” Jesse said. “For staying to listen to this.”

“You shouldn’t have to be alone with-”

“A little late, Doctor.” Jesse interrupted him softly. Watched Darling take it like a blow. Stand a little straighter for it. “But thank you. Really. It’s good to be home.”


End file.
